


Polar Nights

by stellawind



Category: Girl Genius
Genre: F/F, Fighting Women's Tea & Cake Society, Marriage, Multi, Winter nights, lack of sunlight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-26
Updated: 2015-12-26
Packaged: 2018-05-09 11:41:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5538551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellawind/pseuds/stellawind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Violetta had expected multiple assassination attempts on Agatha’s life at the peace conference, but she hadn’t expected the sheer volume.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Polar Nights

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ConstanceComment](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConstanceComment/gifts).



> Please excuse any typos. I'm planning to go back and weed those out in a day or two. Great big thanks to zjtimekeeper for looking this over.
> 
> For the 2015 Girl Genius Yuletide Spark-Exchange on tumblr.

Violetta had expected multiple assassination attempts on Agatha’s life at the peace conference, but she hadn’t expected the sheer volume.

They had come to magnetic north pole four weeks ago, to meet with the other powers of the world, and discuss how best rebuild in the wake of the devastating destruction that the Other had brought first to Europa and then to the rest of the globe. Unfortunately, a number of people seemed to think the best way to deal with the damage wrought by the Other was to kill Agatha in revenge.  

“How are they _getting_ here?” she asked Zeetha. 

Zeetha wheezed out a grunt, trying to loosen a particularly stiff lug nut on a clank.

“I know I checked the air; none of our sea-ice sensors went off, and I refuse to believe that they are _all_ building portals,” Violetta said, pacing around the room, double checking that her counter-measures where back in place. 

“Underground?” Zeetha suggested. 

“All of them?” Violetta said, spreading her arms wide to as though to encompass the entire horde of assassins she’d dealt with in the four weeks they had been stuck in the north. 

With a loud metallic screech — which did nothing for Violetta’s nerves — the lug nut came off, and the clank’s arm clattered to the floor. 

“I’m running out of places to hide the bodies,” she said to Zeetha. Violetta pick up the arm, and beginning to carefully work off each of the seven blades attached to it. Less than half of them were coated with poison. “This clank isn’t a problem, Agatha can always use the spare parts, but…”

“There’s plenty of land. What’s the problem?”

“It’s the bears,” Violetta said, shuddering.

“What bears?”

“The gigantic white ones. They’re taller than a house, and hunt whales for breakfast. Three of them started to _follow me_ when I go outside.”

“Oh,” Zeetha stopped working on dismantling the clank and looked at her with what Violetta thought of as finally the appropriate amount of concern. “You could train them?”

“I don’t want bear minions! Think of what Krosp would say!” Violetta said, already imagining the increasing catty remarks he would make about her copying him.

“Fair point.”

“And the sentries have started to notice. The ones from England have started calling me Goldilocks.”

“Olga had a Goldilocks act in the circus. There was a lot of bed-hopping. And it was the adult only tent,” Zeetha said, leering. 

For a moment, Violetta considering telling her about her family’s version of Goldilocks, and decided against it. There were only so many times that she felt comfortable explaining how horrible her family was, and when she did, she felt better if Tarvek was there, if for no other reason than to see him panic. He hated it when she brought up the past, probably because he knew just how much blackmail material she had on him. 

“I’ll come with you next time,” Zeetha said. 

Violetta realized she had let the silence stretch too long. Zeetha had probably guessed her version of the tale was something awful. To be fair, it was a pretty easy assumption to make. 

“But who will guard Agatha?” she asked. “We can’t leave her alone.”

“We could leave her alone with Gil and Tarvek,” Zeetha muttered, dropping her voice so that it couldn’t be overheard in the bathing room. “It might do them some good. Bang likes assassins too. She’d be perfectly safe.”

“Right up until one of those idiots says the wrong thing, and Agatha goes off in another huff,” Violetta whispered back. 

“But we could tell the boys that they have to stay with her, for her own protection. If we take a few hours, I’m sure they could work it out!”

“Or we could end up with Agatha barricading herself in here with a giant death ray, alone, and crying. Again.” Violetta shook her head. 

Zeetha looked like she was about to argue some more, but was distracted by the door opening, and steam billowed out along with Agatha, who was wrapped up in her dressing gown, looking only marginally more composed than she had before. And she still looked like she had been crying. 

Violetta gave Zeetha a significant look, but Zeetha was focused on Agatha. She saw the signs of distress as clearly as Violetta did, judging by Zeetha’s frown. 

“I don’t think I can do this anymore,” Agatha said, dropping into the chair at her desk.

“Yes. You can,” Zeetha said, standing and kicking the remainder of the clank under the work table Agatha had set up.

“They’re all set against me,” Agatha said. “And I can’t — I can’t just apologize and say that I’m sorry for stuff that I never did. It was her, and they know that, but… I terrify them.“

“Lucrezia terrified them. You just happened to look like her,” Violetta said firmly. 

“You mean she just happened to _be_ me,” Agatha said.

“Knock it off,” Zeetha said, in a voice that was intended to remind Agatha that she would and could distract her with further training, even if it meant Agatha would be sore for a week. 

“Look, all I’m saying is that I know why their afraid of me. I was afraid of me then. These last three years. Or five, spending on who you ask have been awful for the world. I understand why they want to make sure that I’m in control.”

“They were asking you to _give up the Heterodyne title and lands_ ,” Zeetha said, her voice rising. “And you just stood there and listened while Tarvek talked circles around them. You didn’t say anything until Gil started to threaten their weather patterns.”

“I’m trying to show them that I’m not my mother!”

“You’re bargaining for a position of weakness when you’re the most powerful person at the table!”

“I’m not going to threaten them with the Other’s armies and weapons!”

“You should! They’re threatening you!”

Violetta listened to them go back and forth about the meeting, as they dissected the meeting and its failure. It was a familiar litany. 

The first meeting had started with the Polar Ice Lords demanding that Agatha be executed. 

In some ways, they had actually made progress – such as the fact no executions had occurred as yet.

However, as Violetta had dealt with dozens of assassins in the last week, she felt that general consensus had shifted. Now it seemed the Agatha being discreetly murdered was the preferred method of execution. 

Back during those exhilarating few days, right after they had finally triumphed over Lucrezia and erased all traces of her consciousness from Agatha’s mind, Tarvek had predicted this. He had managed to argue them all over to his position before the invitations to the summit had been sent out. It had been his idea to have the meetings set at the magnetic north pole, his idea to scheduled them in the late fall. He had made sure that Violetta had all the tools she needed, including a supply of Smoke Knight poisons and remedies that had seemed obscene in size. 

Now, it seemed as if Tarvek had been the only one of them that had approached these talks with realistic expectations. And his long-term scenarios would have them stuck here for another three months. 

Violetta could see Agatha crumbling under the knowledge. She was used to fighting her own battles, usually literal, with an enemy she could shoot at. 

The longer they sat around, listening to the diplomats and the other leaders lay out the positions, and jockey for a better position, the more Violetta could see Agatha slowly crumbling. Before this, she had never understood Agatha’s hated of her time in Beetleburg; Violetta had thought it sounded restful. Now she could see that it had stifled Agatha and made her smaller. Agatha had become worried and started second guessing herself after the first fortnight of talks, and at a month in she didn’t speak without considering each of her words carefully. 

Violetta thought the sudden concern for how Agatha spoke was creepy. At times, Agatha reminded her more of Lucrezia than of herself. 

It was a relief to listen to her argue with Zeetha. Agatha sounded almost normal again, something which had become increasing rare as they were stuck in north, with Agatha forced to listen over and over to the litany of destruction and death the Other had caused. 

“But I can’t do that!” Agatha said, her vehemence catching Violetta’s attention. “I already have England’s representative commenting on how Gil and Tarvek are _compromised_ already.”

“Wait, what?” Violetta asked. 

“Those are his words, not mine,” Agatha said. “And two of the popes agreed with him!”

Violetta continued to stare at her blankly. 

“You were fighting off the ninja,” Agatha added. 

“Oh! Can I say how weird that was again? A real ninja? Not a clank or a Egyptian mummy, but a real _ninja_?” Violetta said, shaking her head. 

“No, that has to be at least the twentieth time you’ve said that,” Zeetha said, annoyed. “Let’s return to the real problem here.”

“How bout we get some sleep?” Agatha said. “I’m not going to magically agree with you, and I don’t feel like trying to argue you into the ground tonight. All I want to do is sleep. This eternal night is getting to me.”

Without waiting for an answer, Agatha peeled off her dressing gown and climbed into her bed of furs. If there had been curtains, Violetta was sure she would have pulled them, but the rooms the Polar Lords had provided the delegations were sparse. Their only luxury was the bathing room, which had a truly lovely sauna with a hot pool. A table, a bed, and a rack for clothing had been the only other things provided.

At first, Violetta had thought it was a blatant insult, until she saw all the other rooms provisioned in a similar spartan fashion. Agatha’s room was actually bigger than most. Moloch had immediately set out to furnish it better, starting with great fur blankets, and ending with the crowning triumph of acquiring a brazier from a trader. 

Violetta checked on the brazier, and put out all but one lantern.  She brought out her own mattress from under Agatha’s bed, were she tucked it during the day for more floor space. Fluffing her pillow, she looked at Zeetha. 

Zeetha shook her head and pointed at Agatha. Zeetha finished setting up her bed by the window. 

Violetta arranged her bedding, and checked to make sure her weapons were within easy reach. 

Agatha finally began to snore.

“What was it today?” Violetta whispered to Zeetha. Everyday, she asked Zeetha what had gone on. For all that she was in the room with them, the assassination attempt kept her far too focused to pay attention to the word games being played. 

“They want to figure out if she’s going to marry Gil or Tarvek.”

“Oh.” Violetta really wasn’t sure what to say to that. “Isn’t that obvious?”

“You would think so,” Zeetha agreed. “Really, I think it’s something that’s been building this past week, but none of us have said anything, as they are so close to acknowledging that Mechanicsburg will never accept anyone ruling it but Agatha. I think now they’re hoping Agatha marrying one of them will clearly put the Heterodyne, and thus the town, under the rule of someone else. They think she can be trained, like dog.”

“Tarvek explained that, didn’t he?”

“Yeah, when I was checking with him and Gil what Skiffander’s official position on honey imports should be — besides being a completely fictional position, as we don’t import it.”

Violetta’s sigh was echoed by Zeetha. 

“Are you sure we can’t just tell Agatha to be a proper Heterodyne and try to take over Europa? I’m getting really tired of this,” Zeetha said into the dark. 

Violetta’s wistful sigh was echoed by Zeetha, and they both drifted asleep. 

Well, until the undead Viking broke down the door. 

***

The next day, Zeetha made a point to leave Agatha alone with Tarvek and Gil. She ostentatiously called it giving her and Violetta a break, as they didn’t dare leave Agatha alone. In reality, it was to let the two women hold their own council of war. 

“She thinks she has to choose,” Violetta said around a mouthful of cake. 

Moloch had been by with another round of supplies from Mechanicsburg. She and Zeetha had dutifully volunteered to be food tasters and to check all the cakes, cookies, pastries, and assorted other sweets for poison, washing down the lot with tea.

They had hauled the hamper of food back to the room they shared with Agatha, and set the table with their bounty, using various gears as coasters, and scratched out sheets of equations as placemats. 

“I know, and at this point, she might be willing to try, if she thinks it will end this.”

“Try,” Violetta repeated with emphasis, “not actually pick. She can’t. She wants both of them.”

“Trust me, I know. They know, the town knows, and the world as a whole should have its suspicions by this point,” Zeetha said, and then muttered something in Skiff, which Violetta thought was comment on the general intelligence level of the populace, and something about their parentage. Her knowledge of the Skifandrian language was limited. 

“She really should be a Heterodyne about that. Forget the whole terrifying the locals thing. Let Agatha have a lab and those two idiots, and everything should be fine,” Violetta said. 

“I’ve told her that. Many times. But she isn’t listening to me. It’s a stage a _Kolee_ must endure. The _Zumil_ will eventually see wisdom.”

“Present it her another way,” Violetta suggested. “Actually, I’d hate to see either one react to her choosing. It’ll get ugly if she singles out one or the other.”

Zeetha grimaced in agreement. 

Together they picked at their food, only barely remembering to save Agatha a slice of chocolate cake. 

“What if,” Violetta said, slowly, mulling over her words, “we show her the problem in another way?”

“What do you mean?” Zeetha put down her teacup, and gave Violetta the brunt of her attention, her eyes intense

“Agatha _fixes_ things. She just can’t seem to get that this is something that she can fix herself.”

“So we tell her a teaching story, with the names switched? Mother did for me, but I was about eight when she stopped. It was a little obvious who was who.”

“No.” Violetta looked at her tea, and fought her tongue to get out the words. 

“Are you _blushing_?” Zeetha asked, her delight clear. 

“No!” Violetta lied. “It’s the tea. I’m just feeling a little over warm.”

“You _have_ to tell me now!” 

“Agatha’s biggest problem is she doesn’t have an idea about what to do. There’s no template, and for once, she doesn’t want to cause trouble.”

“I can’t imagine why,” Zeetha muttered. “It’s how she’s survived.”

“So we provided her with the template.”

Zeetha cocked her head, her eyes narrowing. 

Violetta felt the flush creep down her neck, and the tips her ears burned. She took a sip of tea to hide her confusion. 

Zeetha took the teacup from her, and held Violetta’s hands with her own, to keep her from reaching for cookie to avoid saying anything else. 

“What do you mean?” Zeetha repeated. 

“We find a third person. That person needs to go all in too. Agatha finds one of us. That person tells Agatha how impossible it is to choose. Agatha solves the problem. We show Agatha that she can solve her problem. There’s one less thing to worry about,” Violetta said, in staccato. 

Zeetha’s hands still lay warm on hers. 

“I notice how you automatically assumed I would agree,” Zeetha said. Violetta would have worried, but she sound warm, amused, and fond.

Violetta sniffed, and did her best to look superior. She felt like all she was missing as pince-nez. 

“I do, by the way,” Zeetha said. “I’m all for making sure Agatha learns her own strengths.” 

Violetta felt a liquid warmth roll through her at Zeetha’s agreement, and she knew her cheeks still glowed a rosy pink. 

“The problem is finding a third person,” Zeetha said. 

“I know. Maybe Moloch? He’s easy enough for us to boss around.”

“And Agatha will have the truth out him just as easy,” Zeetha pointed out. “Also, he made a big deal out of not wanting anyone two years ago, after that thing with Sanaa blew up in our faces.”

“Vanamonde?”

Zeetha see-sawed her hand. 

“I feel the same. And I don’t think any of the jägers would work either. Most don’t lie well enough, and we won’t be able to get any of them on the approved visitors list either.” Violetta felt great personal hatred towards the approved visitors list. The peace talks took place on an uninhabitable island, and thus entry should have been easily controlled. It wasn’t. The waters around it had frozen into sea-ice, and despite the sensors they’d set out, assassins arrived regularly. 

“Higgs?” Violetta said, with caution. 

“No,” Zeetha said, firm. 

Violetta nodded. That particular break-up had been swift. While the two had remained polite, Zeetha had been cool to him ever since. All she had divulged to Violetta was that Higgs should have told her something. Violetta still wasn’t sure what she meant, as she felt there were plenty of things Higgs should have told them. 

“I heard that you have cakes!” Bangladesh DuPree announced, sailing into the room, neatly dodging the three booby-traps Violetta had set up. 

Hastily, Violetta hit the safety switches on the remainder of traps in the room, and thus was unable to block Bang when she swiped Violetta’s own plate of sweets. 

“Hey!” she objected, still retying the almost invisible cord that could trip the rain of knives. 

“Hey,” Zeetha said, and Violetta would have called her tone flirtatious. 

“Uh, hey,” Violetta said, kicking Zeetha under the table, and trying to get Zeetha to think for more than a second about what she was about to do. 

“What is going on?” Bang asked, an arm wrapping protectively around her newly claimed plate. 

“How would you feel about playing a trick on Gil?” Zeetha asked. 

“Keep talking.”

Violetta listened to Zeetha outline the idea, and tried to calm her horror. Bang was a pretty reasonable maniac, once you learned how to deal with her. It could work. It wasn’t like they were actually involved or anything.

As a potential third, she was believable. She was close enough to their age, they knew each other well, and their habit for randomly meeting up for tea and cakes could probably be viewed as dates. 

Also, Bang was very good to have around when everything went straight to hell.

Violetta had to conceded that Zeetha probably did know what she was doing. 

“Oh yes, let’s do it now!” Bang declared, as Zeetha finished explaining their reasoning. “She’s driving Wulfenbach crazy with this, and that was funny, but it’s been about five years now. I don’t think I can take another set of buttons with her portrait on them. He’s done that with two waistcoats now.”

“Glad to hear you’re with us,” Violetta said, and offered Bang the last piece of chocolate cake magnanimously. 

***

Violetta was elected to be the one who present the problem to Agatha. Zeetha cited her _Kolee-dok-Zumil_ relationship, and by mutual agreement, no one suggested Bang. 

“You have all that sneaky training,” Bang had added. “It makes sense that you’d do it best.”

After the negotiations wound down the next day (only a windup vampire bat, with poisoned wing tips, interrupted), Zeetha left her and Agatha alone in the rooms. 

Agatha was looking morose again, and Violetta could tell they would be in for another night of moping. 

To be fair, it had been a rough day from what Violetta had actually heard. 

The new ambassador from the Benin Empire had arrived (the previous one had been hideously maimed when the hybridized narwhal had attacked) and had insisted on Agatha bringing him up to date, and having her explain the whole ugly tale of how her mother had taken over her, been driven out, and then taken over her again (in what had looked to be a permanent way), using the techniques Klaus Wulfenbach had used on Gil and modifying them to suit her needs. Agatha recounted the seven months she had been locked in a constant mental battle against Lucrezia as she had publicly been declared the Other. 

Both Gil and Tarvek interrupted, adding what they could to mitigate it, as Agatha stuck with the bare facts, her voice leaden as she described the hundreds of hives that Lucrezia had set loose. 

Rather than deal with the emotional fall-out of that, Violetta sighed, and looked out the window, adopting what she thought was the most lovesick look she could. 

It was surprisingly easy.

She blamed Tarvek.

Sighing longly, Violetta looked out the window, reaching up to touch the pendant Zeetha had given her to enhance the act. It was strung on the same chain Violetta kept her most precious poisons and concoctions, as a new chain would have raised suspicions. 

The view to the outside was nothing much. The stars shone as faint pinpricks in the sky, and the moon was a sliver. The snow threw back the muted light, a dark blue blanket over the frozen earth. It had been days and days since Violetta had seen even a faint flash of the sun. The most she had seen was the polar twilight.

“Are you okay?” Agatha asked, almost as if on cue. 

“What? Oh. Yes,” Violetta said, too quickly. For extra effect, she sniffed, ever so slightly. 

With satisfaction, she watched Agatha’s face morph into concern. “No, what is it?”

“It’s just—” Violetta broke off to stare out the window again. She made a small sound in her throat. 

“Tell me.”

“It’s awful. I really can’t!”

“You’ve been there for me, always. You even stayed by me when Lucrezia was at her worse. If there is anything in my power that I can help you with, I’ll try,” Agatha said.

Violetta looked away and down, fighting down the victory she could feel rising. 

“Please?”

“It’s, well, we don’t really tell anyone. None of us wanted to make a fuss…”

“Who is we?”

“Zeetha, Bang, and I,” Violetta said.

“And what is the fuss?” 

“Well, we’ve been together a long time—”

“Wait, what?” Agatha asked, her eyes wide behind her glasses, her mouth gaping. 

“We’ve kept it quiet,” Violetta said, working a hesitant tone into her voice, as though she didn’t want to discuss it.

“No, since when? How can I have missed it? Did it just start? I know I’ve been all wrapped up in the peace talks, but I can’t believe I didn’t even notice!” Agatha said, her hand halfway to her mouth. 

Violetta felt guilty, but she shoved the feeling down. 

“We’re really good at being quiet. And we’ve been together off and on since a little after the first time in Paris,” Violetta said. The exact timeline of their fake relationship had been hard to track, and eventually they had agreed it would be best to keep it as vague as possible. On the other hand, they had agreed that having it been a relationship spanning years would give them more leverage when it came time to reverse their solution to work for Agatha. 

“Paris?” Agatha looked a little hurt. 

“None of us really wanted to say anything,” Violetta said, waving a hand. “Saying something would have made it real and breakable.”

“Oh.” Agatha sounded gutted. 

“So, I haven’t and they haven’t. We’ve been stuck in a circle of silence.”

“I’m glad you felt like you could tell me,” Agatha said, resting a hand on Violetta’s shoulder. 

“So am I, but that’s not really it.”

“What is it?” Agatha said, her voice small. 

“It’s been so long,” Violetta started, talking as fast as she could, imitating nervousness. “I was thinking the maybe it’s time to tell more people,, but that’s a big step, and I’m not sure where to start. What to call them, my girlfriends? And I don’t know what I’m going to do later. I mean, I can’t marry both of them. And it’s impossible to pick. So I won’t, but I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“I’ll help,” Agatha said, determination shining in her eyes. 

Impulsively, Violetta hugged her, happy to see Agatha at last without a trace of misplaced guilt, concern, or weariness. 

“Come on,” Agatha said, tugging her to the door. 

Violetta detached her arm, and motioned for Agatha to wait as she did the usual security checks. Rolling her eyes, Agatha waited, boating on her heels in impatience. 

She was towed in Agatha’s wake down the corridor to the next wing over. 

The building housing all the dignitaries was a sprawling mess of corridors and wings. It had been built by one of the Polar Lords’ madboys. Thankfully, beyond the fact it had spouted up overnight in middle of the Arctic Circle, none of the usually spark-built architectural quirks were present. In fact, the sprawling mishmash of wings and the rough-hewn wood mostly reminded Violetta of hunting lodge. 

Gil’s room had been further added to, more than Agatha’s rome had been. He’d brought in another table, enough chairs that he could seat twelve, as the they had a tendency to cluster in his room, maps, and four full bookshelves. His room looked lived in, and Violetta deeply appreciated that, as Agatha always seemed more comfortable in his room. 

Violetta rather wished Agatha had packed as much, but Agatha had been convinced the negations would only take a week. And then a week later, Agatha insisted that they were almost done. Violetta figured by the time she relented and let Vanamonde ship them more furnishings, the negations would end the next day

Both Bang and Zeetha were already there, clustered around a map. Bang just raised her eyebrows at their entrance, while Zeetha was all but bouncing up and down. 

Violetta gave a circumspect shake of her head. Zeetha stilled in her chair, while Bang’s posture became a little looser, like she was readying herself fight. 

Only Gil, Tarvek, Zeetha, and Bang were there. A limited audience, which made things a little easier. 

That said, she was getting the feeling that they would need to keep up the charade of a relationship a little longer. Originally, Violetta had hoped she’d be able to talk to Agatha, wait for Agatha to make the connection to her own life, and be able to declare the whole thing a sham. A rather pointed lesson for Agatha, but ultimately honest, with added bonus of not relying on Zeetha and Bang’s acting abilities. 

“Violetta just told me about the three of you. I’m sorry that you felt you to hide,” Agatha said in a rush. 

Both Tarvek and Gil where blinking in confusion, the map that they had been bent over slowly rolling back up under their slack hands. 

“We weren’t hiding,” Zeetha said firmly. “I just didn’t feel like broadcasting my feelings for all to see. Violetta also had security concerns, which I still think are ridiculous, but…” She shrugged. 

Violetta took a moment to admire the little bit of embroidery Zeetha had done. It was true. A Smoke Knight was specifically not supposed to become involved with a lover, as any sort of connection like that could be used as leverage, and Tarvek would know that. 

“No one asked,” Bang added, laconically. 

Gil seemed to stunned into silence. 

Tarvek mostly looked like he’d been poleaxed. Violetta took a second to memorize his face and tuck it into her memory, right beside the time he realized he’d gone to the opera in a grease-stained work shirt.

“Right. So do you guys all love each other?”

“Yes?” Violetta said, ending in a squeak. 

“That’s right, we do,” Zeetha said, her voice infused with the same flirtatious manner she’d used earlier. 

“I suppose,” Bang said, gamely keeping with their lie. 

“And do plan to stay at each others’ sides?”

“When reasonable,” Bang said promptly. “I’m never letting anyone ground me. I’m hardly going to remake myself.”

“And you don’t need to,” Zeetha said. “We love you just the way you are.”

Violetta nodded vigorously. 

Agatha shrugged slightly. “No plans to settle down together and grow old?”

“I’ll settle for living to see the sun again,” Violetta said, in complete seriousness. 

“Who wants to settle down? I’m going to be fighting until my last breath,” Bang said. 

“Living arrangements have always been flexible,” Zeetha said, smoothly. 

Again, Violetta had to admire her skill. She sounded like she’d been smoothing over Bang’s rougher edges for years. 

“But you three are planning to stay together?” Agatha asked, patient. 

Violetta looked at Zeetha, pretty sure this was a question they need to handle with delicacy.

“Of course,” Zeetha said brightly. 

“What she said,” Bang added. 

All eyes turned to her, and Violetta brought out her most sincere smile, and then hastily dimmed it a notch into something more realistic. Tarvek knew what her fake smile looked like. 

“I never go into anything without a long term plan,” she said. 

“Excellent! Well, I am the Heterodyne, and thus I declare you married,” Agatha said, in triumph. 

Violetta kept her smile fixed in place as she ran to Zeetha’s side, and cautiously brought Bang in as well, sweeping both of them into her arms. She kept it plastered on her face as she hissed under her breath, “Now what?”

“Oh, it is on,” Bang whispered back. 

She upped the game by giving Zeetha a kiss that Violetta wouldn’t hesitate to call filthy, complete with hands going to places that would have gotten her arrested in most places east of Bucharest. 

“Uh, this might not be the best place?” Violetta said. Oh dear, she knew she was blushing again, but really, did Zeetha’s hands need to be going _there_ on Bang?

Zeetha’s hand came away from Bang, and Violetta moved before Zeetha could replicate the move on Violetta’s body. 

“Really, really not!” added Gil, a rising note of annoyance in his voice. “I don’t need to see my sister doing this!”

“I think they need a honeymoon,” Agatha added, looking a little pink. 

Violetta didn’t blame her. The sheer amount of physical lust rolling off of Bang and Zeetha was oddly…inspiring. 

Which made it more than a little worrying.

They might need to go the route of lovers with passions that flamed high and brightly, and then guttered out almost as quickly. A month or two, Violetta thought, and then they could get a divorce. Or maybe a giant fight staged in the morning, and they could have it all done by lunch. 

An idea struck Violetta, a beautiful, perfect idea. 

If she managed this right, Violetta rather thought they could have Agatha’s problem wrapped up by lunch as well. She would have been more hesitant to this a few minutes ago, but that was before she had been married without a by your leave. 

“I don’t think we can do a honeymoon, not right now,” Violetta said dolefully, and kicked at Bang and Zeetha’s ankles to get them to come up for air and pay attention. 

“You’re not doing anything here!” Gil said, his voice rising higher yet. 

“No, but I was thinking,” Violetta looked down, kicked at the ground, and then looked back up. 

“Yes?” Agatha encouraged. 

“Can we have your room tonight? And maybe tomorrow night as well? I think we need to celebrate our first night as a married couple, and I know Bang’s room is smaller than a closet.”

“It _is_ a closet,” Bang muttered. 

“The only thing is, you need to be in a secure room,” Violetta continued. 

Zeetha’s hand came to rest on her shoulder, squeezing it. 

“So, you should stay in Tarvek’s room, which is more secure than here. His attendants can bunk in here.”

“What about me?” Tarvek asked. 

“Both you and Gil should stay with Agatha. You’ve always been good at weaseling your way around assassination attempts, and your room should be as booby-trapped as mine. There’s no question of Agatha sleeping alone in a room. Between the two of you, I think she’ll be safe. Or at least have enough of a human shield to get away.”

Violetta hoped Zeetha’s muffled laugh hadn’t been noticed by anyone other than her and Bang. 

“I can do that,” Agatha said, her cheeks now flaming. 

She got _exactly_ what being between Tarvek and Gil for a night could mean, and by the gleam in her eye, she was beginning to see the advantage. 

“Congratulations,” Gil managed, while Tarvek nodded in stunned agreement over Gil’s shoulder. 

Violetta decided to set a good example for Agatha, and putting an arm around each of her wives’ waists, led them to the door. 

There was a brief confusion over how to navigate the doorway, but they prevailed by walking sideways out. Together they swept towards Agatha’s room, Violetta riding a wave of the sheer audacity. 

She quashed down the urge to giggle. It felt like she was almost floating between the other two. For a moment she imagined wrapping her arms around their shoulders, and just letting them carry her between them, a victorious figurehead. 

Another snicker fought its way up.

“Shh,” Zeetha said, mirth clear in her voice. 

Violetta nodded.

Stepping into Agatha’s room and disarming the first warning system sobered up Violetta. The knife trap came next, and she systematically disarmed the traps and then reset them, before combing over the room, checking for contact poisons and other surprises. 

It was pleasantly untouched, and Violetta sighed in contentment, dropping down into the chair by the window. 

“I think this worked,” she said to the room at large, incandescent with success. 

“If they don’t have it sorted out by tomorrow they’re even more hopeless than I thought,” Bang said. 

“Agatha’s got it,” Zeetha said. “Trust me.”

“Seems more like the blind leading the blind to me,” Bang said, but she seemed to only be sniping for the sake of form. 

“We’ll try something else, if we need to,” Violetta said. “Anyone up for cake?”

A few minutes later, the tea was steeping, and Zeetha was doling out massive slices of cake with jam and whipped cream on top. 

Violetta was halfway though her slice when the realization struck her. 

“This is our wedding cake,” she said, not sure how she felt about that. 

She really hadn’t dreamed much about her own wedding, well, no more than other girls, and probably less than some. She was too pragmatic for that to be more than a passing fancy, but this wasn’t something she would have ever guessed at.

“You all right?” Zeetha asked. 

“Fine, just a little shocked. I really didn’t expect this waking up this morning.”

“Well, I wasn’t expecting the undead Viking either,” Zeetha said. “Just let us know if—”

“I’m fine,” Violetta said. “Just not how I expected to get married.”

“We could help with making sure the wedding night goes a little more smoothly,” Bang said, her voice light and lilting. 

Violetta dropped her teacup. Luckily, it was mostly empty, though the pile of macaroons it fell on were crushed. “Wh-what?”

“Don’t tease,” Zeetha said to Bang, and her voice was warm again, with a throaty purr wrapping around the words

Violetta resisted the urge to bury her face in her hands. 

“It would be a shame not to make use of that bed,” Bang added, pseudo-helpful. 

Violetta’s heart started to beat in triple time and words seem to freeze in her mouth. 

Zeetha looked at her again, her eyes alight. 

Violetta remained frozen. 

“Not that angle,” Zeetha said. “We have a lady here, and she should be treated that way.”

Violetta felt her face burn, but she couldn’t look away, and she didn’t want to tell Zeetha to stop. 

“Oh, I see,” Bang said, her breath bursting across Violetta’s ear. 

Violetta hadn’t even noticed her move, a fact she aside to panic about later, the moment fully given over to reveling in the shivers of anticipation that were creeping across her body. 

“Well, I’m a pirate queen, and I can tell you right now what I do to pretty ladies,” Bang said, her breath now ghosting down Violetta’s neck. 

Violetta waited, her eyes still caught by Zeetha’s, and shuddering at the featherlight finger that Bang traced over her shoulder. She waited, and then finally realized they were waiting on her. 

“What do you do?” she whispered, voice cracking on the final word. 

“I might put her in silks for a while–”

“Or a some nice armor,” Zeetha added, standing up. 

“A dress. Better access to skin,” Bang said, and slipped a hand down the front of Violetta’s shirt for emphasis. “And then I take it off her, and dress her in gold and jewels, until she dripping in them.”

Zeetha shoved the table aside and knelt in front of where Violetta sat, her arms resting on Violetta’s thighs. 

“I think I would just settle for taking the clothes off,” Zeetha said. “I’m sure there’s plenty of beauty to look out without gaudy additions.”

“Say that to me after you’ve seen her in gold and firelight,” Bang said, one of her hands ghosting down Violetta’s side, just hovering above her, not touching, but promising. “I’m know she’d be stunning.”

“Okay,” Violetta said, and leaned into Bang, and brought one of her hands to meet one of Zeetha’s. “We have a lot we need to talk about, but that can come later. For now…”

“For now…what?” Zeetha asked. 

“Take me to bed.”

***

Late that night, Violetta decided to check in Agatha, feeling oddly rejuvenated. 

She easily snuck over to Tarvek’s room, and tapped out the first six bars of a song from the Storm King’s opera, one of their personal codes. A moment later, Tarvek opened the door, and slipped out. 

“Did you mess it up?” Violetta asked, bluntly. 

Tarvek scoffed. “We talked, that’s all.”

Violetta stared at him, trying to figure out how Bang had known.

“Agatha said she has some ideas to make the Polar Lords happy. We told her that we would invade them, if that made her happy. I think the direction of the negations is going to change tomorrow,” Tarvek said, looking rather lovesick. 

“Well, that’s one thing taken care of.”

“It will probably knock a considerable amount of time off the whole process,” Tarvek agreed. 

“Good. I’m not going to go into detail, but I really think you need to do a lot more than just talk to her tomorrow.”

“Good night, cousin,” Tarvek said, rolling his eyes. He retreated back into his room, but before he shut the door, Violetta caught a glimpse of Agatha’s camisole laying over the back chair, with her bloomers puddled underneath. 

Cheered, she made her way back to her own room. 

Bang stirred when she opened the door. 

“Sorry,” Violetta whispered. 

“Where where you?” Bang murmured, still mostly asleep. 

“Checking on Agatha,” Violetta whispered. 

“We missed you,” Zeetha said. “Come back to bed.”

***

The next morning, there were still assassins waiting and an unhappy world still reeling from the Other, but there was a warm bed to lay in. 

Violetta rather thought she could get used to this whole marriage business. 


End file.
